Smoking and Law

[David KUIJT <kuijt@umiacs.UMD.EDU>]

Poster: David KUIJT <kuijt@umiacs.umd.edu>



Gregory Blount wrote:

> I think you should make a motion to delete it. Laws should either be
> followed or should be thrown out. Personally I think it is a good law,
> [....]

This thread has been malformed (maltreated?  Warped, anyway) until it
is almost indecipherable.  Let us separate the major parts of it and
discuss them separately:

A) actual occurrences of smoking, and whether or not they were offensive
	or in violation of Kingdom Law.
  A-1) People involved in the above, and whether or not they are good
	or bad people.

B) whether or not the law is a good one
  B-1) If it is good, how to get awareness up, or possibly how to enforce it


Greg's post (snipped above) is vaguely related to B-1 above.

I'm inspired to ask, however, what exactly a "motion to delete it" (the
law) is supposed to do?  Is this supposed to purify Kingdom Law of a law
that we have trouble enforcing, using (as we always do) only social
pressure of a rather weak sort?  That seems bloody silly to me--we have
trouble enforcing ALL our laws.  Why?  Because we use only rather weak
social pressure.  Why is that?  Because we do not want to be discourteous.

If we are trying to purify Kingdom Law so that all our laws are enforced,
maybe we should start with more important laws than ones about smoking.
Rhino-hiding, for example.  Embezzling funds.  Any of a number of areas
where the SCA frankly has no good way of enforcing our laws.

If, on the other hand, this "motion to delete it" is supposed to galvanize
support for the law so we can exert what social pressure we have more
effectively, that too seems to be a pretty silly idea.  I suspect that
it will have no affect other than to waste time in Curia, which often
goes way too long as it is.


Dafydd ap Gwystl
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